Yesterday I arrived in Anghiari, and I found, once again, that there is something about this experience of arrival that makes me want to record it. I’m aware that I will say what I have said on other occasions, but each time is new, each time I reexperience the joys of everyday life in this place. In fact, one of the things that I rediscover is that things don’t change here in the way that they do in Sydney, where I usually live. Here there is a sense of continuity in everyday rituals, over years, generations; the buildings remain over centuries; the same people are in the same shops. But, of course, there is also change, and the most obvious, for me on arrival this time, has been the change in season.

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

A few years ago I read the Gospel of Mark with some friends. We moved slowly and carefully through the text, often spending a whole evening on just a few lines. One passage that struck me was the ‘feeding of the 5000’. In that story Mark describes the miracle of the fishes and loaves in which Jesus turns a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish into food for 5,000. At the end of the story Mark says, ‘They ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up the twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over’.

Those twelve basketfuls of leftover bread troubled me. I recall badgering my fellow readers about it. Why the excess? God knows the hairs numbered on your head, why not stop with food sufficient to feed the 5,000? Why create more than was needed? What would happen to those extra pieces of bread? Would they be eaten the next day or would they go to waste? What could this excess mean? Was it a symbol of luxury, a Gallilean potlatch?

My naive questions, generously accommodated by my friends, bellied a genuine concern about wasteful excess. But what I didn’t realise then was that the feeding of the multitudes isn’t a story about consumption. It is a story about what is given. It is a story about the abundance of a love sufficient to cover us all, a love that isn’t limited by number, a love available to any who might come.

I didn’t know what I was going to say to you today. Only on the train, on the way in here, did it become clear. I realised that I’d been given the very thing that had to be said.

Absent-mindedly driving to work yesterday, I stopped at traffic lights. Waiting to cross the road were a mother with a toddler in a stroller. The child was turning around to engage the mother and something about the intensity of their moment shook me from my half-life. I saw them: I saw how alive they were. For them, everything in the world was unfolding from this moment together, whereas for me it was only the empty time between leaving home and arriving at work. At the corner of Darley and King Streets, Newtown, at 11.10am on Thursday 2/11/17, two worlds touched, one a half-world of befores and laters and the other a vital moment of here and now.

What came to mind, unsought, was Pieter Bruegels’s painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and Auden’s poem about it, Musée des Beaux-Arts. These two have been constant reference points in my adult life. When I got my first academic job, at Macquarie University in 1984, the first and almost only decoration in my office was a print of the painting, with Auden’s poem glued to its back. Somewhat pompously, perhaps, it was to remind me of the role of sociologists: to witness the suffering that would otherwise go unnoticed. In 1989, the picture came with me to my office at UNSW, and it stayed for decades, until the foxing became too embarrassing.

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be published in both languages. In this blog I’m posting interviews with Simona Boldrini and her son, Matteo Boncompagni.

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be published in both languages.

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be published in both languages.

Belonging in Anghiari: Giuseppe Dini

For many years now Giuseppe has been hosting visitors to Anghiari. I have known him since my first stay in the town, in 2003. On a spring morning, after a long trip from Australia, I was met by him at the train station in Arezzo. From that first visit, whenever I’ve needed help with one thing or another, Giuseppe has been there! So, when I set out on this project of interviewing people who live in Anghiari, he gave me assistance and encouragement. I interviewed Giuseppe in the apartment in which I stay, owned by a Canadian, and managed by him. The interview was conducted in English, and Mirella Alessio transcribed it and translated this edited version into Italian.

I was born about 4 km from Anghiari, in a country house named ‘la Rocchetta’, very close to villa Barbolana. Until I was 9, I had never been to the village of Anghiari, because, naturally, there wasn’t a car, nothing … and so for me the world was only my country house and the houses around it. I couldn’t imagine how big the world was. When I was 9, my family had to move from that country house to another one, close to Anghiari. With a car then, and some furniture, we moved, and that was the first time that I saw Anghiari. And then I said ‘Wow how big is the world’!Continue reading Belonging in Anghiari: Giuseppe Dini→

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be posted in both languages.

Belonging in Anghiari: Armida Kim

Cinzia and her daughters, Armida and Margherita, run the restaurant ‘Talozzi’ located in the heart ofAnghiari. When I was invited to lunch there, Armida carefully explained dishes to me, how they had been prepared and the provenance of various ingredients. After the meal, I interviewed her and her mother. The interview with Armida was conducted in English, and was transcribed by Mirella Alessio who translated this edited version into Italian.

I was born in Sansepolcro in 1993, and for the first few months of my life, my mum and I stayed here, in Anghiari, with my grandparents. Then we moved to Milan where my dad was working. After 3 years we came back. Until I was 16-17, we lived in the centre, in the most ancient part of Anghiari, where my grandparents lived, and then we moved to the countryside.

I went to elementary and middle schools in Anghiari, but, then, for high school, I went to a school of art in Sansepolcro that specialised in textiles. And now I am now doing a 3 year European Bachelor of Science in Design in Sansepolcro. Actually … there is a funny thing here, because when I finished high school I won a prize to a University in Torino to study fashion design. I don’t quite know why I didn’t go…. I am very different from my family because they moved a lot, and… actually, I wanted to stay here. Also, the topic that I am studying is very important in this area. Continue reading Belonging in Anghiari: Armida Kim→

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be posted in both languages. Here are two new posts – interviews with mother, Cinzia, and daughter, Armida.

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be posted in both languages. Here is the first of these.

‘They ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised’ (Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses).

I rode home last night through a bracing wind. It was coming up from the harbour when I crossed the bridge. The sun had just set behind the city buildings and the water was dark. Deep and blue, but only just.

The road leading up to Observatory Hill was dark too and the lights on passing bikes were bright in that darkness. It was hard to see and I was frightened, a little. Or tentative. The coming night held an animal grace that I did not. Elemental. And yet, there I was, riding in that alien beauty.